April 30, 2005

What songs well-known as girl songs would take on intriguing meaning sung by a guy? Tori Amos comes up with a list of 20 songs, but I find her list uninspiring. Do you have any better ideas?

There's also the reverse: what boy songs could be transformed if sung by a female? The obvious actual example of this is Aretha Franklin singing Otis Redding's "Respect."

In Redding's reading, a brawny march powered by Booker T. and the MG's and the Memphis Horns, he called for equal favor with volcanic force. Franklin wasn't asking for anything. She sang from higher ground: a woman calling an end to the exhaustion and sacrifice of a raw deal with scorching sexual authority. In short, if you want some, you will earn it.

"For Otis, respect had the traditional connotation, the more abstract meaning of esteem," Franklin's producer, Jerry Wexler, said in his autobiography, Rhythm and the Blues: A Life in American Music. "The fervor in Aretha's voice demanded that respect; and more respect also involved sexual attention of the highest order."

The trouble with a man singing that song is that it's a bit ugly: I make the money, so you owe me. It's the conventional arrangement. The lyrics are a bit awkward in the female re-sing. Why was Aretha giving this guy "all my money"? But we ignored that. It was the remnant of the Otis version. She sang through that and pulled out the better, female meaning through sheer force.

UPDATE: The classic example of a man singing a woman's song is Frank Sinatra singing Gershwin's "Someone to Watch Over Me." He's forced to sacrifice the most beautiful couplet -- "Although he may not be the man some/girls think of as handsome" -- but singing words that are an entirely conventional woman's dream, Sinatra lets us see a shocking, haunting vulnerability.

Marty: Tori Amos did it too, with "Strange Little Girls," which includes a cover of an Eminem song, "[t]he first-person story of a man dumping his lover's dead body takes on an ugly sickness and brutality with Amos's almost-whispered narration."

"Fast Car," by Tracy Chapman, I've always thought would be a better song if sung by a guy. (In fact, with Chapman's low voice, the first few times I heard the song I thought it was sung by a man.) Sung from a woman's perspective, the song makes the singer sound needy and dependent and oppressed by the underachieving men in her life, and I want to knock some sense into her and tell her to stop supporting her alcoholic father and slacker boyfriend and go buy her own fast car to drive away in. But sung from a man's perspective, giving up one's own dreams to care for others seems more touchingly noble and does less to rub my feminist sensibilities the wrong way, because it's not playing into modern gender stereotypes in the same way.

I like almost all of the songs on "Strange Little Girls" very much. My only complaint with it was that the entire album consisted of those covers, and after the first half-dozen songs or so, the pleasant surprise of hearing those songs covered by a woman wore off a little bit.

I really love the idea of a male singer covering "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow." It might be a particularly apt choice for an Emo group to record.

Sometimes, these covers can go disasterously wrong. The Counting Crows' cover of "Big Yellow Taxi" is one of the dumbest records I've ever heard. In fairness, I don't know what male group could have done a very good job of covering that song, but even so, the Counting Crows' version struck me as astoundingly bad. Not only did those words sound strange coming out of a man's mouth in the first place, they changed the song's best couplet, and for less sensical reasons than Sinatra did with "Someone to Watch Over Me." "And a big yellow taxi took away my old man" suddenly became "And a big yellow taxi took my girl away." I wanted to slap my forehead in disgust every time I heard that song!

Oh! I think I've heard that version of "Who is He..." and never knew who it was I was listening to. Now I gotta go find that and listen to it again. I don't know if it's fair to say Withers was whining, for God's sake, but I do agree this other singer brought an extra bit of darkness to the lyrics.

With regards to #8 on Tori Amos's list: I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor, Cake did a terrific cover of the song. I'm not sure that the gender mattered much, though.

More important was Cake putting their unique rhythm on it. It transforms the song from being focused on the strong emotions, to making you listen closely to the lyrics. Cake's version isn't as good, but it is interesting.

When sung by a man, it's obvious the narrator is yearning for the girl from Ipanema.

However, I've heard a more haunting version by a woman, where it's altered slightly and indicate that the narrator yearns for the man who yearns for the girl from Ipanema. It's somehow sadder that way.

Another great example of a classic girl-song sung by a guy is Lyle Lovett's version of "Stand by Your Man." He sings the exact same words as Tammy Wynette, but the fact that Lovett is singing it opens up all the ironic possibilities of the lyrics.

Re Terrence's remark about "Will you still love me tomorrow," Pat Boone actually did cover it, on the Armed Forces Quarter Hour of the Air. It was (obviously) unforgettable. He put in all the pangs of lost (male) chastity and the tragedy of teen premarital intercourse. Eat your hearts out, Carole King and Shirelles.

I listen to a lot of traditional music, and at least in the Anglo/European tradition (and I suspect all folk cultures) men and women often sing songs where the viewpoint of the song is clearly of the other gender. It is understood that the singer is a vehicle for the story in the song, there isn't the same cult of personality as with pop song, so you don't get the same confusion.

The indie singer Cat Power does an amazingly haunting as well as acoustic cover of the Rolling Stone's "Satisfaction". For the first time ever, I felt like the song had some depth other than a guy wanting to get his rocks off.

"Bobbie McGee" done by Joplin was (like most of her stuff) pure female sexuality - what a torch singer she was. Done by Kristofferson, it was a rasping and somewhat rednecked lament; god damn them women, you sluice one of 'em out a your heart and she jist don't stay gone.

One of Tori's suggestions, "God Bless the Child" has also already been recorded by a male. David Clayton Thomas of Blood Sweat and Tears gives a harrowing version, and I love it in a completely different way from the original.

A song I thought would be cool to hear a man do is Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides" Anyone know of a male recording?

In the early 90's when we were still playing heavy metal I used to sing Wendy O. Williams/Plasmatics song Come on Baby Put Your Love In Me which I figured attained kind of a spiritual meaning when sung by a guy (to a girl I hope).

My boyfriend, a trained singer, has been going through a very difficult patch in his search for meaningful employment all while struggling with OCD, depression, and Type One diabetes. He has leaned on me as his rock these last few months, and last night, after a particulary blissful and stress-free Beltane weekend, we snuggled up in bed and he serenaded me with "Someone to Watch Over Me."

And the only change he made was:"And though I may not be the manSome girls think of as handsomeTo my heart she carries the key..."

Of course, this is also the guy who's been known to sing me arias in parking lots! And yes, I did get all weepy.

Every Little Thing She Does by the Police. When Sting sings the lyrics "I resolve to call her up a thousand times a day/And ask her if she’ll marry me in some old fashioned way" it makes perfect sense. But when Shawn Colvin sings the adapted lyrics it becomes problematic. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a woman asking a man to marry her. But it ceases to be old-fashioned in such a case.

Shawn rules. In fact, most of the songs on that same album (Cover Girl) are "men's" songs: Dylan's _You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go_ takes a bit of a different meaning when Shawn sings it, also David Byrne's _Naive Melody_, as well as some of the old C&W standards she plays on that album. I do an acoustic duet thing part-time while the band isn't playing and we do 3 of her versions of covers from that album, _Every Little Thing_ (you mentioned), _You're Gonna Make Me_ and _Heart of Saturday Night_.

This is kind of interesting, speaking of Shawn, in the song she wrote (with J. Leventhal), _Climb On (A Back That's Strong) from the movie "As Good As It Gets" and her LP "Fat City") she sings the lryics: If you could save meA place in heavenWith a clean well-lighted roomI'll muscle up to ArmageddonAnd I'll wave to you darlin'Be home soonAnd if you could show meThe story of loveI would write itAgain and againAnd then you could beThe woman you needIf you just let me beThe man that I am

As far as I know Shawn is straight, so is she speaking metaphorically here? Or just being weird?

Also, her LP "Whole New You" is one of my all-time fav albums. I've probably listened to it 1000x and it just keeps getting better.

(late to the party, but)My ex pointed out that "house of the rising sun" loses its meaning when sung by Elvis - it's a song about being a whore. Having lost its meaning, it can then be played on radio. - arbitrary aardvark